Attention Venezuelan shoppers: Please proceed to the supermarket checkout for fingerprinting.
That could be a reality if a plan announced earlier this week by the country's president, Nicolas Maduro, goes into effect.
The
purpose? Combating shortages caused by rampant smuggling of subsidized
food in Venezuela across the border into neighboring Colombia. Maduro
says the system would stop people from buying too much of a single item.According to the BBC, up to 40 percent of subsidized goods from Venezuela are smuggled into Colombia.
"The
amount of staples smuggled to Colombia would be enough to load the
shelves of our supermarkets," Gen. Efrain Velasco Lugo, a military
spokesman, told El Universal newspaper.